“Got a plan?” he asks, his mechanical eyes scanning the room and the floors below us. “Because there are one thousand and ninety-eight soldiers all heading this way. We have about fifteen seconds, according to these magical eyes.”

“Less,” a voice comes from across the room.

I spin around and see that Tyco is sitting up, his eyes glowing bright white. Happy is onto us.

He leaps down from the paralysis bed and strides toward Malachai and me.

“Shit, shit,” Malachai mutters, stumbling backward, not yet recovered from the Block and the paralyses of this place.

“Hi, new friend!” Apple-Moth says, zipping up to Tyco’s eye line.

Tyco swats the little drone to the floor. And in that moment I feel a blinding rage.

I move forward to meet the Alt, raising my fists. I swing hard at his head but he ducks it easily, throwing a hook as he does, his fist connecting with my solar plexus and knocking the wind out of me.

I crumple to the floor, gasping for air, and Tyco aims a kick at me, the top of his foot slamming into the underside of my chin.

My head rocks back and I see white stars in my vision, but the rage is still pulsing through me. I get up and run at Tyco, tackling him around the waist and dragging him to the floor.

Tyco throws three jabs and hits me each time, once in the left eye and twice on the jaw.

“It is futile to fight me,” Tyco says, getting to his feet. “You are shorter than this host, lighter than him, you did not have the upbringing he did, and you have no upgrades.”

“No,” Malachai says from behind Tyco, “but I do.”

Malachai throws four heavy punches at Tyco, landing all of them before headbutting him right between the eyes.

Tyco stumbles backward and falls, sliding across the floor, coming to a rest against a set of stainless-steel cupboards. Malachai marches over to the cupboards, grabbing them and pulling them on top of the thrashing, bright-eyed boy.

I look up at Malachai, who doesn’t even seem out of breath.

“That should buy us about thirty seconds. What now?”

I get to my feet, and just as I’m about to admit that I have no idea how we’re getting out of this one, I spot the drone-riser still hovering a few inches above the ground outside the lab door. “Does that window open?” I ask, pointing to the large pane of glass beside the shelf of nanobots.

Malachai’s eyes—now with two segments lit up—glow orange and the window opens. “Wow, I can override Happy … because I’m about to be Happy!”